Today's hotel guest is more informed and demanding than ever. With dozens of choices at the fingertips of potential guests, how can your hotel rise above the crowd? To capture a bigger share of the market, your employees must focus on delivering more bang for the buck than your competition. Otherwise, guests decide where to stay primarily based on price and location. And that means you're nothing more than a commodity to most of your customers. Hotels with a guest-centered sales culture outperform competitors by building more value into every guest interaction. When your sales and service team is dedicated to providing a special experience for each traveler, you create preference and loyalty with your guests. And that helps you fill your hotel at a higher rate. Sounds simple, right? Anyone who's tried to build and maintain a sales culture knows it's not easy. But in working with more than 5,000 companies since 1986, we've found that it can be done by following three basic steps... READ MORE

To group, or not to group, that is the question. It doesn't take William Shakespeare to pose the quandary facing many hotels of how much group business is good business and when does a group pose a risk to maximizing revenues at a property. To begin to answer this, we must first uncover the principles that hospitality pricing has always been under. Hotel Revenue Management has been and many times, still is, under the "department" of sales and marketing and the Director of Revenue, most of the time still reports to the Director of Sales. The Director of Sales has a mandate to fill the house and most sales managers focus on group business, so therefore the thought is "if we want a sales team, we want them to sell and they need to sell group". This then leads to the thought of "take group business and then if we get the transient to fill in the holes". These thoughts are fundamentally unsound and cost many properties hundreds of thousands of dollars. READ MORE

Is it possible for a hotel to "create" demand? Is this just a myth used by Directors of Sales to try and stimulate the troops? When it appears that there is just no one wanting to visit your property, can you really "flip a switch" to drive people to your product? It is possible to create demand where there is none. First we need to uncover what is demand and how can it be managed and even stimulated. READ MORE

The hospitality industry has been affected by many devastating events in recent years. The attacks of September 11, 2001 struck fear in travelers, and the airlines and hotels responded in unprecedented ways that completely changed the way we traveled. SARS fears reached to multiple continents as people feared the spreading epidemic. The war in Iraq and the increasing terror threats reduced attendance at the Olympics in Athens to unheard of low levels. Hotel occupancy and Revenue per Available Room or RevPAR (a key indicator in the hospitality industry) were expected to be at record highs but dropped to record lows. READ MORE

When does a guest book? The answer most give is, "when they want to stay". The truth of the matter is they book when the time is right for them. Traditional marketing gets all the information in front of the guest and hopes that when the gust books they choose you! This shotgun approach leaves many properties unable to track true conversion on their efforts and wasting money on trying to get guests that never stay. By looking at true patterns, one can put the value product in front of the ideal guest at they time they are interested in booking, thereby creating an easy environment for the guest to book. In addition, since this guest is getting what they want, not only is conversion higher, but the ADR is as well. So, how do you know when is the right time to get before your guest? The key is micro-segmentation of the guest profiles and searching out what they value. READ MORE

Revenue Optimization as most know has drastically changed over the past few years and is still constantly changing. How people shop and where they get their information changes on a day by day basis. The old adage of "right room, right person, right price" is no longer applicable and a successful property has all bases covered from demand and content management. As the world of Travel 2.0 grows, the traveler is getting smarter and access to more and more tools they may not have had in the past. Sites such as www.gusto.com have made the traveler the one in control. With real time access to like-minded people, the new Web 2.0 allows the potential guest to see what they really want to know about the destination they are going to and this includes value. As the adage goes, price is what you pay for something and value is what you get. READ MORE

As we go through the throws of the budget and planning season, people consistently wonder how does one look into the future to get more accurate budgetary planning and get good data for revenue strategies. Now, is always a good time to start planning. There is one fundamental difference between Revenue Management and Revenue Optimization, the former is passive and the latter is active. More than that, it's proactive. Revenue Optimization looks into the future and builds a plan to effectively create revenue and harness demand to fully return the best revenues possible. This is the goal of all who do Revenue Management (Optimization). So, what are the keys to proactive Revenue Management? What can move a property from Revenue Management to Revenue Optimization? Let's look at the process and learn how to maximize our return. READ MORE

Revenue Management continues to change rapidly. The days of "right room, right person, right price at right time" have long disappeared. So how do you really measure success at the property? Now-a-days, the margins are getting ever closer and with more and more rooms being sold at net or wholesale rates, it's ever so important that properties look beyond the top line and see how their bottom line is effected by the decisions they make. GOPPAR, or Gross Operating Profit Per Available Room solves that need and gives a valuable look at how a property is truly performing. READ MORE

The average manager in the hospitality industry makes hundreds if not thousands of decisions every day. There are few industries with as much human interaction with guests, employees, vendors, potential clients and community. Making the right decision is a critical part of management. This article examines the decision making process and offer a framework for managerial decision making. READ MORE

Sustainable practices like any new venture have costs and in some cases costs that a small business operator cannot afford. An argument for pursuing sustainable business practices is to preserve and conserve our resources by having a business be socially responsible and be good for business. This article will examine planning for sustainable practices and sustainable businesses and the tactics and resources that can be used to achieve the goal of creating a sustainable business. READ MORE

Resort and Spa, Resort and Spa, a fitting end to a resorts name, however, what the American spa has morphed into may have now departed from what was the luxury spa experience. As with any functional item, when a boom occurs often the classical original gets diluted in the process. This article will travel back in time when the American spa was first conceived to what we now know as a resort or luxury spa facility and endeavor. READ MORE

Hot! Hot! Hot! Condo hotels are burning hot. Across the country and around the world, the development communities have discovered the concept of the condo hotel. However, it is no longer enough to create a residential development with the standard pool, restaurant and tennis court or a hotel with little of the resort type enticements. Your market now demands much more. READ MORE

The number one issue that is continually overlooked by the architects of record on spa facilities is flow. It seems that if an architect has not experienced numerous spas first hand, and by experienced, I mean actually have been a guest and used the spa services often, they do not possess the necessary experience that will provide them with all the nuances of what makes a health spa facility a success, from both an aesthetic view and an operational view. READ MORE

If you were to look at your mid week business and reflect on your occupancy, meaning treatment room occupancy, you will get an idea of how your spa business can improve. We've all designed those lovely mid-week packages, that are a great deal, but it seems that few often work enough to fill those treatment rooms during the week, unless there are guests already planning to come to your property. Having created such packages for years and tracked their success, they do little to motivate the guest that had no intention of taking a vacation at the time your package is targeted, however, they can be the reason why they chose your spa over another. So, although you may not think that they are worth the marketing efforts, do no dispense with them. They are offered by your competitors and a potential guest will take note and compare. READ MORE

At first blush, this may sound a bit absurd to ask because most would think that, of course, if your property has a spa facility, your General Manager would definitely be supportive of that amenity, right? Not always, unfortunately. Regardless of the scope of your spa services, there are still those few General Managers "out there" that look at spas as something that only women indulge in and that they themselves would never be caught dead having a massage or facial and definitely not allow someone to scrub the dry skin from their bodies. So they keep a wide berth from the spa and what goes on behind those closed doors will forever remain a mystery. READ MORE